The Minonk City Council approved the ordering of an LED message board to be placed at the northeast corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets, at its normal Monday night meeting. The message board will be used to display community messages and can be controlled remotely from City Hall. The cost of the message board is $11,850. The council approved a 50% down payment as requested by the vendor, Martin Sign Service of Metamora, IL. City Administrator Austin Edmondson said there is a 6 week delivery time line which means the message board should be ordered now so it can be ready for installation by spring.
Budget Review
City Administrator Edmondson said overall the budget continues to do well. He said he is making progress in getting the PTAX-300 forms completed so the City can make some of its property tax deductible which will save the City $9,281.92 in tax payments each year. He said the water fund has slipped into negative territory with a loss of $9,165.18 while the sewer fund has a surplus of $50,815.62. Garbage pickup fund has a positive balance of $2,465.21 while the ambulance fund has a deficit of $20,647.83.
Comp TIme Cap
The council discussed setting caps on compensatory time at 32 hours versus the current limit of 60 hours. City Administrator Edmondson wants to set a max of 32 hours for comp time.
Revolving Loan Fun
The council voted to keep $30,000 in cash that was formerly earmarked for specific governmental projects in the revolving loan fun.
Emergency Notification System
City Administrator Edmondson gave the council an option to choose between the Blackboard messaging system and Code Red for an emergency notification system. Mr. Edmondson said while the City is currently using the Blackboard system, he felt Code Red was more user friendly and had more options and also was slightly cheaper with Code Red costing $2500 a year versus $2617 for Blackboard. Alderman Russell Ruestman said he felt messages should be sent out more often than a couple of times a year. City Administrator Edmondson said if too many messages are sent out it loses its effectiveness. The decision on which system to use will be put into the budget process.
Fieldcrest Resolution
The council did not take any action of a resolution that would request the Fieldcrest School District to maintain the existing school buildings and not build any new structures.
In other business the council authorized Admistrator Edmondson to accept or reject an offer of electric rates for the City from NIMEC during the bidding process to be held sometime between Febuary 1 and March 31.
There has been no progress made on the Elm Court Sewer project due to sloppy and inclement weather.